These murals were painted by an American street artist in the US and France in 2016
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on December 11, 2019 at 04:35
- 3 min read
- By AFP Sri Lanka
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The photos were published in this tweet on December 5, 2019. One of the images shows an individual with paint brushes and paint-stained clothes posing in front of a mural. The other photo shows an artist painting another mural.
The tweet has received more than 597 likes and 57 retweets. Below is a screenshot of the misleading tweet:
The Sinhala text translates to English as: “Mirissa 
Mirissa is a coastal town in Sri Lanka, situated about 170 kilometers south of the capital Colombo.
The same photos were shared hundreds of times after being published here, here, here and here on Facebook alongside a similar claim.
The claim is false; the photos were actually taken in Miami and Paris, and one of the images was digitally altered.
A reverse image search on Google of the photo of the mural and the artist found this 2017 article published in Submerge, a California-based entertainment magazine.
The article features a similar image and identifies the painter as a street artist named Miles Toland. It adds that Toland painted the mural, titled “Turquoise dream,” in Miami, USA in 2016.
Below is a screenshot of the original photo in the Submerge article:
A comparison of the image published by Submerge and the first image in the misleading posts reveals the coconut grove behind the wall was added to the image in the misleading posts.
The yellow street markings in the original photo were also removed in the image in the misleading posts, and the colour saturation was altered.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the Submerge image (L) and the picture in the misleading post (R):
The same mural was featured here on Toland’s official website. The caption states the painting was completed in Miami in 2016.
Below is a screenshot of the mural on Toland’s website:
A reverse image search of the second photo in the misleading posts found this page on HiveMiner, a data mining tool for image hosting service Flickr.
Below is a screenshot of the image listed on HiveMiner:
The tags on the image state that the photo shows Toland working on a mural in 2016 for Project Saato, an urban art initiative in Paris. The mural was also featured on Project Saato’s official website here.
The artwork was also featured here on Toland’s official website, which states that the mural was completed in Paris in 2016. Below is a screenshot of the mural on Toland’s website:
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